Team:Bilkent UNAM Turkey/safety
Team:Bilkent UNAM Turkey/Safety
To address potential safety issues with our project, we were asked by iGEM to answer the following questions:
- Would the materials used in your project and/or your final product pose:
- a. Risks to the safety and health of team members or others in the lab?
Using hazardous materials always has risk to cause trouble for team and lab members. We always use hoods and wearing lab coat, gloves, goggles are essential for an experiment.
We are working on two species one of them is Chlamydomonas reinhardtii which has no dangerous effect on human health. Other one is Bacillus subtilis which also is not human pathogen but it could cause food poisoning.
- b. Risks to the safety and health of the general public if released by design or accident?
Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a strain of algae and it could cause algal bloom that means it overgrown in a water ecosystem and become poisonous for other species which share same places.
According to a Toxic Substances Control Act report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Bacillus subtilis is considered “a benign organism as it does not possess traits that cause disease. It is not considered pathogenic or toxigenic to humans, animals, or plants. The potential risk associated with the use of this bacterium in fermentation facilities is low.” Its degree of toxicity is III and IV the lowest toxicity effect on other species.
- c. Risks to environmental quality if released by design or accident?
We haven’t checked modified organism is more competitive than natural strains. However; Bacillus subtilis is well-known and commonly used model organism like Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.
- c. d. Risks to security through malicious misuse by individuals, groups or states?
Our modified Chlamydomonas reinhardtii just degrade TNT and it could not use for terrorism activity. Those two modified organism could not have ability to damage human health. Our facility always has an active security system and it requires an identity card for enterance.
- Do any of the new BioBrick parts (or devices) that you made this year raise any safety issues? If yes,
- did you document these issues in the Registry?
- how did you manage to handle the safety issue?
- How could other teams learn from your experience?
Groups which will use our parts should be consider resistance of transgenic algae. None of our parts raise any safety issues. In iNitroalgae Project, Clamydomonas reinhardtii experiments were done indoor of a BSL1 laboratory setting. Working with algae could be include transgenic plant policy to care about but we are not sure.
- Is there a local biosafety group, committee, or review board at your institution?
- If yes, what does your local biosafety group think about your project?
- If no, which specific biosafety rules or guidelines do you have to consider in your country?
The National Nanotechnology Research Center (UNAM) has a guidelines primarily focused on prpoerly disposing of biohazardous materials. We don’t require to contact to these group since, our project has usual techniques which is standard for cloning. All team members obey the rules during researches.
- Do you have any other ideas how to deal with safety issues that could be useful for future iGEM competitions? How could parts, devices and systems be made even safer through biosafety engineering?
The Registry of Standard Biological Parts include a set of safety process (e.g., proper storage, disposal, lab precautions, and so on.), when they got this parts they accept to take care about those cautions. Simple precautions could save really complicated harmful exposure. All team member should be informed about those safety regulations.
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